Falla, Manuel de (redirected from De Falla)

Falla, Manuel de (mänwĕl` dā fä`lyä), 1876–1946, Spanish composer; pupil of Felipe Pedrell. In Paris from 1907 to 1914, he met Debussy, Dukas, and Ravel, and was to some extent influenced by their impressionism. His music, however, remained distinctively Spanish, rooted both in Andalusian folk music and the classical tradition of Spain. Falla was an authority on flamenco music and made use of it in his compositions, keeping the vitality of flamenco but imposing upon it rigorous musical structure. Notable among his compositions are an opera, La vida breve [life is short] (1913); a suite for piano and orchestra, Noches en los jardines de España [nights in the gardens of Spain] (1916); and the celebrated ballets El Amor Brujo [wedded by witchcraft] (1915) and El sombrero de tres picos [the three-cornered hat] (1917). From 1921 to 1939 Falla lived in Granada, organizing festivals of native folk songs and touring Europe to conduct his own works. He moved to Argentina in 1939, where he directed the first performance of his guitar solo, Homenaje (1920); later orchestrated as Homenajes. His ambitious choral work La Atlántida occupied his later years; it was finished after his death by Ernesto Halffter and presented in Madrid in 1961.

Bibliography

See G. Chase, The Music of Spain (1960) and S. Demarquez, Manuel de Falla (tr. 1968).

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Falla, Manuel de

(born Nov. 23, 1876, Cádiz, Spain—died Nov. 14, 1946, Alta Gracia, Arg.) Spanish composer. He studied with Felipe Pedrell and conceived a powerful musical nationalism. His first major work was the opera La vida breve (1905). He lived in Paris (1907–14), where he absorbed the music of Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, and others. The intensely Spanish ballet El amor brujo (1915) gained him further acclaim. The Spanish Civil War caused him to leave Spain for Argentina c. 1938, and he never returned. His other works include Nights in the Gardens of Spain (1915), The Three-Cornered Hat (1919), the puppet opera El retablo de maese Pedro (1923; with Federico García Lorca), a harpsichord concerto (1926), and the huge unfinished oratorio L'Atlántida. He is regarded as the greatest Spanish composer of the 20th century.